The match was played in gusts of 40mph, and the British No 1 struggled with all parts of his game.

He was broken twice in each set as Nadal coped much better with the conditions to ease to his second title of the year following January's Australian Open success.

After the match, Murray said: "I'd like to congratulate Rafa. He definitely deserved to win. He played great in difficult conditions.

"I haven't played in conditions as windy as that for quite a long time. Rafa dealt with it very well. He hit the ball cleaner and just seemed to get himself in better positions than I did.

"You don't necessarily want to be doing a whole lot of defending and running. You want to be in the best position possible to hit each ball, and I wasn't. That's why he managed to dictate most of the points.

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For the 21-year-old however, there were plenty of consolations; a third ATP Tour final of the season after victories in Doha and Rotterdam and plenty of ranking points to up the pressure on world No 3 Novak Djokovic.

"I've had a great start to the year and hopefully I can keep it going," he added.

Looking ahead to his next tournament - the Masters Series event in Miami - Murray continued: "I got a lot of matches that I wasn't necessarily expecting, so going into Miami I'm going to be better prepared than I thought.

"Obviously, today was not my best day but I'll definitely get over it because I'm guessing I'm not going to play in those conditions each week."

Concurring with Murray's comments regarding the weather conditions, world number one, Nadal said: "Conditions today were really difficult but I had a good strategy and I played a really good match with those conditions.

"Probably Andy didn't play his best because of the conditions but I played a really complete match. I was moving very well, I never stopped the legs during the whole match, and I think that was the key today.

"I don't know if I was a little bit more prepared than him to play in these conditions. Maybe I accepted [the conditions] a little bit better than him."

Nadal's victory ensured Murray's winning run against him ended at two, and he was delighted to rack up a sixth career success over the Scot.

"Andy was the only top player who I didn't beat this year so it was important," he added.